Date: Tue, 4 Nov 1997 11:24:09 +1030 From: Greg Lehey <grog@lemis.com> To: Gary Kendall <gdk@ccomp.inode.COM> Cc: "Jordan K. Hubbard" <jkh@time.cdrom.COM>, hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: mv /usr/src/games /dev/null - any objections? Message-ID: <19971104112409.54867@lemis.com> In-Reply-To: <199711040009.TAA08962@ccomp.inode.com>; from Gary Kendall on Mon, Nov 03, 1997 at 07:09:12PM -0500 References: <3096.878596384@time.cdrom.com> <199711040009.TAA08962@ccomp.inode.com>
next in thread | previous in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
On Mon, Nov 03, 1997 at 07:09:12PM -0500, Gary Kendall wrote: > It wasn't too long ago that Jordan K. Hubbard said: >> Unless there are any truly serious objections, I'm going to starting >> campaigning vigorously in core for the complete removal of this rather >> useless collection of games which has gotten us in trouble not once >> but now TWICE upon receipt of a letter from Hasbro's legal council >> stating that we are violating the trademark on "Boggle", a Hasbro >> game. >> >> It looks like the folks at UCB who originally put this collection >> together were as ignorant as it's possible to get about trademarks, >> and I'm sure it's only a matter of time before another game from this >> collection joins the ranks of tetris and boggle as "things which screw >> up our CVS tree when we're forced to remove all traces of the damn >> things." >> >> Adding this to the fact that the "games" there are antiquated and >> probably never actually played by anyone suggests, to me, a strong >> need to simply nuke the bloody things once and for all and stop >> distributing games from anywhere but /usr/ports/games (where fortune, >> arguably one of the few "games" still in wide use, could easily be >> moved). > > I can understand how mixing high-priced corporate lawyers with > public-domain source code can drive you beyond frustration into > the Great Beyond, but scrapping all of the games seems a bit ham > handed. Why not send any questionable source code to the > corporations in question, and let them make all of thier > objections at once? How do you know which corporations are in question? > And I'm not sure it's necessary to remove all traces of the > game, just all traces of the trademarked word or phrase. It doesn't seem to be as simple as that. At least, it wasn't with T*tr*s. I think it would be a pity to get rid of them altogether. Can't somebody in some country that isn't too worried about US litigation (sorry, excludes Australia) put them up on a machine, and we just point to them? Greg
Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?19971104112409.54867>